“9”, for example, the number of albums Patrice has released in twenty years. Like the number of songs on his new record. Like his birthday in Cologne, July 1979. “New”, as the impression you get when listening to this new album, which tends its sweggae garden – a style between soul and reggae, but marks a musical revival and a personal German singer, seven years after his predecessor. There’s breath and light in songs like this summer’s single ‘Sun Is Out’, ‘Sentinel’, ‘Become Who You Are’, ‘Undefined’, a benevolent, even saving light in these times.
This tireless traveler, who lives between Jamaica, New York, Cologne and Paris, took the time to create these new songs, as he explained to us during his concert at the Paris Paradis festival in September. “I moved to Jamaica six years ago to experience new things,” says Patrice. I have already been there several times and dream of going back to live there. Jamaica is the epicenter of much of the world’s music, and spiritually it’s an important place for me. »
«Album Combustion Bob Marley changed my destiny »
Patrice Barth-Williams built a studio house there to live with his wife and two children, ages 13 and 17. “Not just everywhere,” he laughs. On a hill in the middle of a forest, along the highway that leaves Kingston. Initially, there was no way to get there. We started building it by carrying the material on the backs of monkeys, seven monkeys. We almost called him studio of seven monkeys. We made it with a huge Jamaican producer, Clive Hunt. » This septuagenarian, a true reggae legend, has worked with Peter Tosh, Stevie Wonder, The Wailers, Jimmy Cliff, Grace Jones, Bernard Laville…
Reggae, along with the folk of Bob Dylan, is Patrice’s nurturing ground. «Album Combustion Bob Marley was my first contact with music and it influenced me a lot, he confirms. He changed my destiny. I went to a boarding school where music was very important because it allowed me to escape. I had the opportunity to work with Clive Hunt on my new album, but also with African producers while staying in Senegal, explains the singer. I recorded my duet there I will never let you go with Simi, a Nigerian singer who is doing very well there. I think I have created about a hundred songs. But I found time to select and improve them. The pandemic allowed me to release a better album. »
“This is like my musical home”
His attachment to France, like his first record, is celebrating its 25th anniversary: ”Here, it’s like my musical home,” he sums up. When I’m in France, I try to act like a local artist, to speak French. My parents gave me two French names, Patrice and Gaston, I have always liked the language, the song, I came to France several times as a teenager on a school exchange. And when my first EP (mini-album), “Lions” came out. (in 1998) without promotion and press, France was the first country that asked me and successfully hosted it. It’s hard to explain. He worked with concerts by word of mouth. »
If his albums haven’t moved us all, his concerts have always enticed us. “I’m never 100% happy with my albums,” he admits. I am a live artist, my songs are always better on stage. »
Although produced by Live Nation, he also organizes his tours himself, with real ecological and spiritual considerations… The current tour of France, which he does in an electric car, takes him through the Bataclan in Paris (11th arrondissement) this Friday, November 3rd. “This space has meant a lot to my career,” he recalls. This is the first time I’ve played it again since that terrible event that will mark us forever. It’s important for me to play it again. It is up to us to define it, bring our vibrations there, share the love there. »
” 9 “, Patrice album, Supow/Because Music. On tour this Friday at the Bataclan in Paris, December 1st in Brest
“Falls down a lot. Writer. Passionate alcohol maven. Future teen idol. Hardcore music practitioner. Food fanatic. Devoted travel fan.”
